Why we fail: How hubris, hamartia, and anagnosis shape organizational behavior

Why We Fail: How Hubris,Hamartia, and Anagnosis ShapeOrganizational Behavior

Randal Ford

This article presents three tendencies (hubris, hamartia, and anagnosis) toexplain why organizational personnel are prone to fail. All people aresubject to these tendencies. Few organizations or individuals understandthem, however, and fewer still know how to manage them. The articleemploys short case studies to define them and offers solutions on how toovercome their impact.

The survival of a corporation depends on the ability of its members to shapeits destiny. When an organization flounders, the stakeholders—the boardof directors, the executive officers, the stockholders, management from alllevels—start to analyze the failure, often pointing to a “lack of leadership” orany number of other flaws, real or imaginary. Trust goes out the window.Everyone becomes frustrated and defensive.

Making or not making a mistake in itself does not determine success. Toparaphrase Viktor Frankl (1962), success depends on how we as individualsreact to our failure experiences. For example, Warren Bennis and PatriciaBiederman (1997) claim that in creative groups, failure is regarded as a learningexperience, not a pretext for punishment. According to Peter Drucker (1993),the most important ingredient for a company’s success is the members’ abilityto draw new knowledge from their mistakes and learn how to apply thatknowledge in new and productive ways. 3M found its direction after failing inthe mining business. R. W. Johnson Jr., founder of Johnson and Johnson, fre-quently proclaimed, “Failure is our most important product.” In short, webuild and maintain vital, adaptive, and resilient organizations through whatwe learn from “lots of failed experiments” (Collins & Porras, 1997, p. 184). It isnecessary, then, that an organization understand what can and does go wrong,

HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT QUARTERLY, vol. 17, no. 4, Winter 2006 © Wiley Periodicals, Inc.Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) • DOI: 10.1002/hrdq.1187 481

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accept responsibility for the consequences, and avoid similar circumstances inthe future (Lombardo, 1986). The trick, it seems, is knowing how to fail safe.

An ultimate failure is defined as when the organization falls short of animportant goal with no other recourse but to go out of business or drasticallydownsize to remain solvent. All of its resources have been exhausted, andin the end, the employees’ sustained efforts do not fulfill a desired outcome.Failing safe and ultimate failure, however, are not the same event.

An organization fails to fail safe when its workers are unable to recoverand learn from the failure experience. In the prospect of admitting to our indi-vidual mistakes, each of us is confronted with owning up to the limits of ourown competence. We are not perfect. Our knowledge and personal experiencesdo have limits. Those members of an organization who incubate their ego andavoid learning from their failure experiences are most likely to give birth tonew ones. We can never know the whole from our solitary perspective. Criti-cal flaws in the human character, as ancient as they are pervasive, tend to pre-clude effective learning and produce ineffective organizations. Aristotle cameto a similar conclusion over twenty-five hundred years ago.

As organizations, our collective failure is enabled by what Aristotle calledour all too human tendency toward hubris, hamartia, and anagnosis. All peo-ple are subject to these tendencies. Few organizations or individuals under-stand them. Fewer still know how to manage them. Identifying theopportunities in the failure experience requires both knowledge of its rootsand tools to change individual member behavior to better accomplish strate-gic goals.

To Err Is Human

Aristotle was one of the first Western philosophers to articulate three limitingcharacteristics that predispose humans, despite our best intentions, to fail:hubris, hamartia, and anagnosis (HH&A). Hubris and hamartia he writesabout directly (see Else, 1967). Anagnosis (“without knowledge”) is a term Icoined for this article. Actually what Aristotle talks about is a leader experi-encing anagnorisis (recognition) of past deeds, and always too late to do any-thing about them. Because people act blindly in the present, at some point inthe future (though too late), they will come to recognize the full consequencesof their actions. What Aristotle implies, then, is that up to the point of recog-nition (anagnorisis), people tend to act in a vacuum of ignorance; hence myterm anagnosis—acting without knowledge. In short, without learning (knowl-edge), people are more likely to fail, either as individuals or collectively. Hence,the implication: when the organization is not able to harvest and manageknowledge gained from employees’ mistakes, it has failed to fail safe.

HH&A predispose all humans and the organizations they labor in to makeand repeat mistakes that lead to ultimate failure. For instance, on a broad scale,political analysts studying the consequences of institutional hubris argue that

it leads to the decline and fall of world powers: from Athens, Alexandria,Antioch, Pergamon, Rome, Madrid, the Hague, and London to the atrophy ofthe U.S. federal government (Phillips, 1994). The ability to recognize thesetraits in ourselves not only increases the chances that our organizations willfail safe, but also better prepares us to minimize undesirable results and drawimportant lessons from the failure experience.

Hubris, an overweening pride or ego, implies the violation of a law or fail-ure to recognize the limitations of one’s knowledge by regarding oneself asequal to the gods. Hubris is an act of will and as such also suggests arrogance.We demonstrate it by behaviors and claims to our superior importance orrights.

Hamartia translates as a “flaw in character” and is essentially psychologi-cal. A person, for example, who is doggedly stubborn and exhibits a terribletemper alienates others, which leads to his or her downfall. The character flawinterpretation is accurate to a point. But hamartia has more to do with the lim-itation of individual perception than a psychological flaw. Hamartia derivesfrom the Greek hamartanien—to miss the mark, to err. People tend to lock intoa single point of view such that we often are unable to recognize or hit ourintended target. We fail by a lack of ability, when left alone, to get outsideour limited perspective.

For Aristotle, the limitations imposed by hubris and hamartia go hand-in-hand to undermine a person’s ability to make sound decisions and act effec-tively. However, these tendencies are only two points in a strong triangle. Thetriangle is completed with anagnosis. We are limited despite our open-mindedness—what scholar researchers who study how decisions are madewithin organizations call “bounded rationality” (see Simon, 1957). Simply put,we can never know all there is to know about any endeavor or situation. Anag-nosis is our lack of knowledge that creates in us an inability to make sense ofhow everything fits together to form the big picture. That is, if our refusal tolisten (hubris) is compounded by our inability to see the whole from ourlimited perspective (hamartia), we are acting in a vacuum of ignorance (anagnosis),deprived of the informed knowledge we need to accomplish organizationalgoals.

Obvious acts of hubris include dogmatism and chauvinism. Dogmatism isthe act of asserting an opinion in an arrogant manner without proof orevidence—in short, “My way or the highway.” For example, after 350 years,the Roman Catholic church lifted its 1663 condemnation of Galileo for teach-ing that the earth orbited the sun, contrary to the then current dogma teachingthat the sun orbited the earth. The church finally acknowledged this error in1997 after the completion of a thirteen-year study (Cowell, 1992). Chauvinismis the unreasoning devotion to one’s race, gender or sex, nationality, or class tothe exclusion and with contempt for others. Prudential Insurance Co. of Americapermitted its agents to misrepresent its life insurance policy provisions tocustomers. Now, hobbled by excessive overhead, an outdated product line, and

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two sales scandals, there was a 50 percent decline in sales from 1991 to 1996and another 24 percent decline in 1997. The potential cost of its marketconduct settlement with policyholders could run into billions of dollars(Scism, 1997).

Hamartia is different from hubris. Hamartia is not an act of will. Instead,something obscures our vision; a mote is lodged in our eye that, left unat-tended, could lead to an ultimate failure. Translated, that means that if theemployees are blind, the organization is blind too. For example, the crash ofa ValuJet aircraft killing 110 people in the Florida Everglades in 1996 wasapparently caused by a fire from the oxygen-generating canisters in the cargohold. SabreTech cargo handlers, ValuJet maintenance, and the Federal AviationAdministration all failed to see how not designating responsibility for attach-ing required safety caps could lead to an ultimate failure (Greenwald, 1996).We experience failure when our circumscribed viewpoint blocks our view ofthe whole situation. A holistic view is impossible when we each insist our viewis right, to the exclusion and devaluation of another’s perspective. Our hamar-tia obfuscates our view of all necessary points that would give us a more com-plete perception of reality. Thus, when employees who are in positions ofpower make decisions that affect coworker lives and insist on their limitedview as absolutely right, they increase the risk for an organization to go astray(see Ford, Boss, Angermeier, Townson, & Jennings, 2004).

The use of multidisciplinary and participatory forms of decision makingis directed at compensating for our tendency toward hamartia. Yet more isneeded. Our organizations are becoming so complex that every individual acthas unexpected side effects, many of which cannot be anticipated. When sys-tems are interdependent, actions in one area directly and immediately affectmany others. The nuclear reactor failure at Chernobyl, for example, was pre-cipitated by operators who were routinely violating safety rules because theyhad come to believe they knew better and considered the rules a nuisance(Dörner, 1996). We can never know all there is to know about any situation.Humans are by nature social beings and incomplete when we isolate ourselvesfrom the collective.

Isolation creates anagnosis. For example, when we focus too intently on theisolated incident without simultaneously envisioning the end game, eventsremain disconnected, and we are uninformed of the driving forces antecedentto the present. Who would have predicted the World Health Organization(WHO) would be parachuting cats into Borneo to stop a bubonic plaguebrought on by its own extravagant use of DDT? With the best of intentions,WHO sprayed DDT to eradicate mosquitoes carrying a malaria plague. Theinsecticide also killed houseflies, which were eagerly eaten by geckos. Eventu-ally, through the buildup of DDT, the geckos died too. Without the geckoes toprey on them, the population of rats rapidly expanded, resulting in an outbreakof bubonic plague. Before the thousands of cats could eat the rats, thousands ofpeople died from the plague (Alcamo, 1991).


An increasingly popular way to view an organization is as a set of interre-lated systems (see Dixon, 1994). Studies show that to understand systems-levellearning, it is essential to focus on the organizational structures, processes, andsystems that facilitate learning. As members of an organization, we must learnthere is a lag time between the execution of a measure and its effect. We mustlearn to recognize patterns in time that evolve between different functionaldepartments, with different needs and mind-sets. To do so means we mustcontribute to and embrace the collective knowledge of all of our members.Only then can a corporation say it is managing its knowledge well. Only thencan an organization say it is acting with knowledge, not without it (Davenport &Prusak, 1998).

Creating a Credible and Open Process

A credible and open process diminishes the collusive tension of HH&Abetween employees and management levels within an organization (see Ford &Angermeier, 2004). Consider, for example, Nucor Corporation, one of thenation’s largest steel producers. Nucor’s workforce is strongly committed tobuild steel manufacturing facilities economically and operate them produc-tively. It has received a great deal of attention in the business media in recentyears because of its success in an industry beset by a multitude of problems.

The 1983–1984 recession that devastated the American steel industry alsohit Nucor. To survive the decline in revenues, Nucor placed its employees ona two- or three-day work schedule, with a corresponding cut in pay. This pol-icy was applied across all levels of the organization, from the CEO to the low-est maintenance worker. No employee was laid off. With this strategy, Nucornot only saved the company during economic hard times but created a net-work of sound working relationships and an esprit de corps that bounded backwith incredible force (Iverson, 1997; for similar results in health care, seeFord & Angermeier, 2004). How?

Nucor’s CEO created a credible and open process. Nucor shared with itsemployees the company’s problem and then got them to agree to work togetherin constructive ways to remedy the situation. According to researchers Chrislipand Larson (1994), without these basic understandings among all participants,any attempt to define the problem, develop solutions, and implement a planwould be premature. And having involved all the stakeholders, Nucor builtsound relationships that were flexible and responsive to the market.

What is the relationship between creating a credible and open process andminimizing the pernicious effect of the character flaws HH&A? If people areto collaborate effectively, they have to be able to create a shared work in com-mon that takes shape in their mutual discussions and actions rather than fromone person who acts as an authority to the others. Sharing accurate informa-tion also allows employee-stakeholders to determine where and how they fitinto the greater scheme of the organization (Monge & Miller, 1988) and that

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allows them to effectively participate in learning how to coordinate theiractions (Castrogiovanni & Macy, 1990; Lawler, 1986) and make better deci-sions (Brady, 1989). Nucor gave its employees a stake in a company’s growth,focused on the business at hand, and kept red tape and bureaucracy to a min-imum (Rodengen, 1997). This credible and open process enabled the employ-ees at Nucor to put aside their personal agendas to embrace a larger sharedgoal, which created intense loyalty (Ritt, 1998a, 1998b).

Engaged in a credible and open process and keeping in mind each mem-ber’s capacity for HH&A while the organization reflects on the tough questionswe cannot easily answer cleanses us of our arrogance, informs our mind, andreveals our flaws. HH&A function like blinders. Once we become aware ofhow we are acting, we can choose to act differently. Only through a credibleand open dialogue can each member’s HH&A be surfaced and thus its effectsminimized. The benefits for the organization increase when what is learned iscaptured, stored, shared, and used to improve our collaborations to createinnovative systems, outcomes, and services (Ford & Angermeier, 2004;Gephart, Marsick, Van Buren, & Spiro, 1996).

At Nucor, the learning and the application of that knowledge have notstopped yet. General managers are responsible to hold annual dinners withevery employee in groups of twenty-five to a hundred at one time. These meet-ings give employees a chance to discuss problems related to scheduling, equip-ment, organization, and production. The format is free and open. Topics varywidely from year to year. Sessions can last well beyond midnight. In a similarmanner, the general managers meet with top management three times eachyear to review each facility’s performance and plan for the months and yearsahead (Sheridan, 1998).

Reflection and Dialogue

How can company personnel recognize HH&A, and what can they do aboutit once they do? A useful starting place is our underlying assumptions, beliefs,and the culture from which they stem (Argyris & Schön, 1978)—in short, oureveryday interactions with our work colleagues. HH&A are inherent tenden-cies in the human condition that are omnipresent but mostly unconscious. Thepotential for HH&A to appear happens anytime people come together to workcollaboratively, especially when difficult and significant decisions must be madeand passions are running competitively high.

What makes the destructive aspects of HH&A so pervasive and difficultto apprehend? These dark tendencies are deeply connected to the driving pas-sions necessary to accomplish our dreams and vision (Harris & Hogan, 1992).Yet these same tendencies, when not monitored or when we are totallyunaware they exist, collude to create our own personal triangle for tragedy andundermine collective interaction with other organizational members. Trying toeliminate these tendencies, even if we could, would be sure folly. What is


important is not eradication but learning when HH&A are helping thecollaborative effort and when they are getting in the way.

Let us say, for instance, that several divisions of a company agree to sharethe same sales force in an attempt to become more horizontal and responsiveto serve their market niche. However, in a vertical-functional versus ahorizontal-collective environment, each district manager would be primarilyconcerned that the shared sales force would not give enough attention to hisor her particular business and that volume would decline. Already we see eachmanager asserting an ego (hubris), from a perspective limited by self-interest(hamartia), that will put each at odds with the others; consequently little com-munication occurs (anagnosis). HH&A are driving the events toward an ulti-mate failure in this company. The situation calls for a credible and open processthat gets each division manager to agree there is a problem, then agree theywill work on it, then determine what the problem is, and together generatesolutions that satisfy all their needs. The situation calls for reflective dialoguethat builds sound working relationships and trust to enable all the divisionmanagers in the company to work together.

Alas, the existing culture established certain assumptions and ingrainedbehavior that each division manager knows from past experience works—whatPeter Senge (1994) calls “mental models” or “theories-in-use.” What pre-dictably happens is that one particularly aggressive manager advises all his orher account managers to set higher sales targets than are truly needed. Thisway, using the reasoning of the previous culture, the shared sales force will atleast give his or her division the minimum support they need. Right? Wrong.Human nature being what it is, the other divisions see this dastardly managerpushing for extra work and decide to employ the same strategy.

The new sales force’s managers want to accommodate all, so they continueto accept the higher requests from the divisions. Such actions naturally createa tremendous overburden of work, which produces lower performance andincreased turnover. Unable to meet its needs, soon morale and the goodwill ofthe sales force take a nosedive. What trust there was disintegrates. Businessbecomes disrupted and fouled for each division. Sore nerves and bad feelings runrampant, and vital resources are lost. And cost soars. Each division goes backto square one by maintaining its own sales force. In short, each manager’sHH&A colluded with the others to create an impossible situation and anultimate failure—misaligned, misused, and eventually squandered, resources.

The fundamental problem never addressed in this scenario is that eachmanager needed to amend his or her perspective on how business as usualwould be accomplished with a shared sales force. But no way can do whenmanagers are blinded by ego, a limited perspective, and lack of knowledge.Sound familiar? Now the question becomes, “What can an organization doabout it?”

The skills for group reflection through dialogue are being researched andapplied (Bohm, 1996; Isaacs, 1999; Senge, 1994). The purpose of group

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dialogue is to surface the mental models we unconsciously formulate andunderstand how HH&A drives the construction of our own and the group’sperception, its constraints, assumptions, and beliefs, in order that we and ourorganizations can better recover and learn from the failure experience. Groupdialogue allows each employee in the organization to clarify her or his think-ing; identify and communicate values and principles; and extend the individ-ual’s perception to include the whole. Through group dialogue, employees areable to access a larger pool of meaning with each person’s view bringing aunique perspective on a larger reality. And when we are able to do so, the col-lusive power of our personal tendency toward HH&A to create a triangle fortragedy subsides considerably.

In Closing

Peter Swartz’s experience at Shell Oil illustrates an important lesson for anycorporation (1991). He describes how Shell was able to minimize the negativeconsequences of the 1974 oil embargo through years of collective (and col-lected) reflection at the highest levels. Their method was the process of creat-ing and exploring the implications of what-if future scenarios. They were notpredicting the future. They were preparing their minds to comprehend itshould it occur. When it did occur, they were prepared to think about it moredeeply. Is it possible to achieve a breakthrough without recognizing the break-downs? Not likely. Must we all reinvent the same broken wheel? Not always.Is there an easier way to learn from our mistakes than going through the soli-tary routine of trial and error? Probably, if we do not insist trying to go it alone.Individuals cannot explore all the pertinent views of a situation as well as agroup, especially using a structured dialogue process. We are by nature socialbeings, incomplete when isolated from the collective. As organizations, ourcollective failure is enabled by what Aristotle called our all too human ten-dency toward hubris, hamartia, and anagnosis. Personnel in all companies aresubject to these tendencies. Few understand them. Fewer still know how tomanage them. To compensate, however, we become aware. Enlightenmentbegins with admitting these tendencies exist, then learning how they drive usas individuals in our organizations.

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effectiveness. Paper presented at the Thirteenth Annual Psychology in the Department ofDefense Symposium, Colorado Springs, CO.

Iverson, K. (1997). Plain talk: Lessons from a business maverick. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.Isaacs, W. (1999). Dialogue and the art of thinking together. New York: Currency Books.Lawler, E. E. (1986). High-involvement management. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Lombardo, M. M. (1986). Questions about learning from experience. Issues and Observations, 6,

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Randal Ford is professor of management at the Hasan School of Business, ColoradoState University-Pueblo.

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Why we fail: How hubris, hamartia, and anagnosis shape organizational behavior